


Twisted

by j_liz_8



Category: Lab Rats (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, Captivity, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Inprisonment, No Slash, Possible Character Death, Swearing, Violence, WIP, possible gore, slight AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 04:39:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2053950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_liz_8/pseuds/j_liz_8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if the Lab Rats hadn't escaped in You Posted What?!<br/>Follows Adam and Chase, but mostly Adam, after the government takes custody of them and forces them into solitary confinement. What will be done with (and to!) the bionic brothers?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I used to read & write hockey RPF. This is my first fandom fic ever. In fact, it's my first fic of any sort in a long time.  
> Also on fanfiction.net, though this version might get some tweaks.

Adam Davenport’s anger is terrifying. And that’s coming from someone close to the situation. Adam Davenport himself, actually. But everyone he meets is aware of it, too. He’s made sure of that.

Because his anger is also liberating; it thrills him to feel just how deeply, inhumanly powerful he is.

* * *

 

Adam hates tranquilizer guns. If not for them, he wouldn’t have woken up sore and alone in a cramped room with inadequate lighting and a camera he disposed of with a quick flash of his lasers. These people took him away from his home and his siblings; he’s not going to let them take his forced privacy, too. And it’s a no-brainer that he’s going to try to escape—it’s what he’s working on right now. So it’s not like they need a warning.

The wall is stronger than he expected. It takes three good punches and a blast of plasma to haul it down. He pulls a deep breath in, satisfied, and takes a quick observation of his surroundings. He knows his siblings are in this building somewhere—he overheard frantic radio calls earlier, the guards insisting on more manpower to subdue subject C, which Adam knows was Chase in his Commando Mode. He’s always secretly proud of what “Spike” can do, even when it includes trying to beat him up. Knowing Chase didn’t go down easy give him hope, and he rushes in the direction the guards he’d fought scrambled as soon as they put a tranquilizer dart in his neck.

Adam knows that once he’s found, he’ll get swarmed and put in another cell. But he has to try to find his siblings, see them one last time before they’re all turned into nothing more than experimental specimens. He needs to let them know he’s going to fight as hard as he can to get them out of this…and that no matter what happens, he loves them. He didn’t say it enough when he had the chance, didn’t tell Mr. Davenport or even Leo and Tasha. He was kinda a total dick, and it wasn’t like he was compensat--

“What the…” he hears a startled voice behind him and turns, hoping he won’t be overrun so soon after smashing to freedom. To his relief, it’s a single pale guard who starts backing away, fumbling with the radio on his shoulder. Before he can call for backup, Adam blasts the radio to a charred mass of metal, gives a hard warning with a red-tinted glare, and runs the opposite direction.

The hallway ends in a staircase and he dashes up it, recalling the agents’ boots clanging on the metal staircase as they rushed to subdue Chase.

He slams the door open when he reaches the top of the stairs, leaving a large dent in the metal, and runs a few feet before stopping short. _Shit, so many doors_ , he realizes, also realizing it’s possible that neither Bree nor Chase is on this floor. _Screw caution_ , he decides, and starts pounding on doors, bellowing their names. He hears footsteps before he hears a voice he recognizes.

“Chase! Oh my God, Chasey, where are you?” Adam is determined to get to his brother before the guards get to him.

“Adam, I’m here!” Chase’s voice is hoarse, probably from whatever Spike was threatening in his slightly-creepy overly deep voice.

Adam pulls himself to a stop as he almost blows by Chase’s room. He hauls the door from its hinges and tosses it aside, wrapping his little brother in as gentle a hug he can manage. “Oh my God, Chasey, I’m so sorry. I’ve been such a jerk, with the throwing you around and shit and the jokes. I know I can’t make it up to you now. But I’m sorry,”

“It’s OK Adam, it’s OK,” Chase assures him, clinging into Adam’s shirt, his forehead pressed into Adam’s chest.

“Chase…I don’t know what’s going to happen to us. But I love you and Bree and I’m going to fight my hardest to get you two out of here, OK? I’m not going to stop fighting these bastards until we’re away from here. I’m not going to let anything happen to you two. I love you.”

Chase nods against Adam. “I love you, too, Adam. I should have—”

At that moment, the security rumbles around the two of them, shouting for the two of them to separate and comply peacefully.

“Not until I see my sister.”

“We cannot allow that, Subject A. Surrender peacefully or we will be forced to tranquilize you.”

 _Not again_ , he growls to himself.

“Adam, listen to me. Maybe it’s best if you just do what they ask,” Chase warns, stepping back meekly.

“No. I told you, I won’t let them do anything to me, or to the two of you. I won’t let them win.”

Before the guards can advance any closer, Adam turns to face them, pulling electricity in towards himself with a snarl.

“Don’t even try it!”

“Adam, you’ll probably make things worse if you attack them. Please, just let them take you.”

“No, I can’t. I can’t go with them until I’ve seen Bree. I just…I can’t.” Adam releases a burst of power, slamming the guards against the walls several feet away.  “I can’t promise you’ll be safe. But I love you, and I’m going to get us out of here.” Adam says, pulling Chase back towards him. “Just…don’t let me be the only one who’s fighting to get free,” he pleads, looking Chase in the eyes. “Fight with me,” he whispers, kissing his little brother on the forehead, right where his right eyebrow is curling up in obvious concern and fear.

* * *

 

 _And what if I don’t?_ Chase wonders as his older brother dashes off. He doesn’t like the situation any more than Adam does, and the idea of being stuck here for the rest of his life is horrifying. But he doesn’t think that fighting them is the best idea. After all, if they can’t get him under control, or at least get him to stop breaking things (and people)…then they won’t have any use for him. Bree and himself, they could subdue and eventually bend to their wills. But Adam, Adam’s too powerful for them to overcome. If he insists on his blind rage, they won’t have any choice but to neutralize him.

He really hopes his brother won’t get himself shot.

Chase realizes Adam probably isn’t afraid of being shot. He’s afraid that his younger siblings, Bree and himself, will be. But the way he’s acting, covering his fear with anger and aggression, he’s the most likely one to be shot. And then he won’t be able to help Bree and himself the way he so desperately wants.

Chase just hopes Adam will realize that.

 


	2. Chapter 2

“I’m getting out of here, and I’m taking you all down,” Adam asserts. He barely hears the agent warning him that he will be neutralized if he becomes overly hostile. He scarcely notices that he’s been encircled by seven armed guards. He’s too busy having a flashback to a similar moment.

“When I get out of here, I’m taking you and Marcus down,” he’d said when Douglas had captured him and his family. The anger he’d felt then is laughable compared to his rage now. Though he’s glad Douglas is on their side now—not that it does them much good—he wishes he could go back to when he and Marcus were his biggest threat.

Adam knows it was much easier to handle a deranged, power-hungry man and a sociopathic, unfeeling robot than it will be to conquer an entire government agency. But he has to. He can’t let anything happen to his brother and sister, no matter what happens to him. He feels like he owes this to them. He should have protected them, should have fought them out of it when they still had the chance to make it out safely.

Adam’s scared. He’s more scared than when he and Chase almost got incinerated in the fire when Bree destroyed her chip, or when he screwed up and accidentally sic’d Spike on himself, or even when Krane attacked in the Lab. He’s scared that his little brother and sister are going to be tortured just for having these awesome powers they had no choice in getting. He’s scared that they’re going to die. And he didn’t even get to see Bree yet!

Adam doesn’t like being scared. It angers him that a handful of people in suits can make him want to just sit down and cry. That would be weak. And if these people see him, the strongest man in the world, as weak, they’re likely to think his siblings are weak too. He knows they aren’t, they’re the strongest people he knows, but he doesn’t want these people to have any reason to suspect they can lay a finger on them.

He wants to prevent these rude, know-it-all, controlling suit people from ever even getting the time to think about hurting Bree and Chase. And the best way to do that, that he can think of, is make sure they spend all their time worrying about him.

So he fights.

He notices, but doesn’t acknowledge, the guards pulling some sorts of weapons from their hips. He’s aware of the fact that some of the weapons are stun guns and tranquilizer guns, and that a few others look more sinister, like actual guns. But he realizes he isn't really afraid for his safety.

Without pausing to charge a blast wave, which would have made things much easier, he lashes out.

He feels a nose crumble under his elbow as he thrusts it back. He doesn’t do much in the way of planning often, but he knows he has to clear the people behind him before he can focus on the people in front of him. He’s pretty sure the next casualty he inflicts is bad; he hears something snap sharply.

He moves on without a second thought, which is never hard for him, and breaks the hand attached to the closest actual gun. He grabs the gun barrel-first, roughly introduces it to another guard’s skull, and starts backing towards the wall. He knows it’s easier for them to corner him this way, but at the same time they can’t sneak up behind him. And he’s confident in his ability to take out threats from the front. A quick laser flare puts another pair of guards out of commission, making strangled noises as they clutch their singed body parts.

He disrupts a flanking attempt with a quick sideways jab of his elbow. The next sentry to get within striking range receives a crushed jaw. He’s oddly pleased to realize the only guards still standing are already half crippled. They’re also trembling, and none of them have lethal guns.

Adam gives them a quick, challenging smirk. And then a confused grumble as something prickles him just below the collarbone. A tranquilizer dart. _Again?_ He’s really done with these things.

 _Maybe if you stopped fighting them…_ a little voice in his head suggests, but it’s pushed away.

He’s never going to stop fighting, not until he can’t move. And he’s too strong for them to ever, ever weaken him that far. Though if they keep on tranquilizing him, it’ll give them more of a chance to try.

So he’s just going to have to take out the tranquilizer guns first from now on.

* * *

 

Chase hears spike-shod boots dashing across the hall of his cell. He hears snatches of radio calls over the clashing footsteps.

“Subject A snapped!”

“Subject A went hostile!”

“Split up, come at him from both sides!”

“He doesn’t know we’re coming, be as quiet as you can once he’s in hearing range!”

 _Adam, what in the world have you gotten yourself into?_ He wonders, seriously hoping that it won’t affect Bree and himself.


	3. Chapter 3

“Subject A, it’s not even the end of your first day at our facility and you’ve already been tranquilized twice. It’s my assumption you like being asleep. Or you could just like to cause trouble. We don’t like trouble; it’s rather disruptive to our processes.

“It can be arranged that you get to sleep, and we don’t have to worry about you…permanently. Then all of us will be satisfied.” Agent Graham stands in front of him, holding a pistol with way less caution than a deadly weapon should be handled.

Adam gets the sense Agent Graham is bluffing, simply trying to intimidate him and confuse him with big words. He’s not **that** stupid.

Adam will not let himself be intimidated that easily. Not when he has to protect his younger siblings. He swallows his fear, hating himself for letting it exist and try to surface in the first place, and gives Graham a flat stare.

“I know what you’re saying. You want me to think you’re going to kill me. You’re not going to shoot me. If you were actually going to get rid of me, I don’t think you’d care enough to come see me yourself. You see me as an experiment, and as a monster. People who want to terminate monstrous things don’t talk to them; they just do it.”

Adam hopes he’s reading the situation right. He’s never been as good at this type of thing as Chase is. But he knows that they don’t want to kill him just yet; they could have done so the moment they stormed his home. And they didn’t. There has to be a reason.

They’re going to try and force him to comply with their demands first.

“Hmm, you’re smarter than we first assumed. You may be of some use beyond rash destruction after all,” Graham seems pleased, as if he thinks he’s actually achieved something.

“Whatever ‘use’ this is, I’m not interested. I’m not an animal for you to prod and train to do what you want. You can’t control me,” Adam’s voice has a brittle edge to it.

“Hmm. We’ll see about that, Subject A.” Adam feels a pinch in the back of his neck. He really should have paid more attention to the plain woman with Graham.

“No fair,” he whines. It’s not the most challenging thing he could say, but he has no idea what they just stuck in him. He’s not focusing on being defiant. “What did you do to me?” he demands. He’s pretty worried; that needle came really close to his chip.

“It’s a numbing serum. We want to see what happens when the nervous surrounding the location of your chip is deadened. And since you insist on continually using your bionics, you volunteered to test it. Thank you, Subject A, for contributing to our research. You may go back to your rampages, if you want to…and can.”

Graham turns his back on Adam and strides away. Adam tries to blast him across the back with his lasers.

His eyes tingle painfully and give off a few pitiful orange sparks. That doesn’t usually happen.

Now he’s really, really mad.

And he can’t do anything about it. That just makes him angrier.

But he figures anger is better than fear.

* * *

 

Chase has his hearing turned up so high he can hear the guards making their rounds on the upper floors. He’s relieved when three hours pass without any Adam-related commotion. He’s aware that the calmness in itself could be a problem; it’s not like Adam to just give up. He’s stubborn as hell.

But hey, if Adam had gotten himself into trouble again, he would have caused some sort of ruckus. So Chase figures that everything is fine. Or, well, as fine as everything can be when he and his siblings are forcibly separated and facing an unknown future that probably involves tests and pain.

So he’s content to wait until Adam goes rogue again. Because he’s sure he will.


	4. Chapter 4

Adam stares at the back of his hand, blood swelling over his split knuckles. He’s vaguely aware of the pain smoldering in his hand; he’s too busy being angry that the wall didn’t crumble to notice anything else.

He’d never really thought about how much his bionics were natural to him, a part of him he’d taken for granted for as long as he could remember. But now they’re the only thing he can think about. He was so used to them, he could trigger them basically without thinking. Especially his strength; he could almost feel his strength as a constant pulsing in his muscles.

Jesus, he wants his powers back, dammit.

Without his powers, he can’t escape—can’t escape his holding cell, and can’t escape his building, burning anger. He knows that if he could just get them working again, his rage would have flattened the tiny room long ago; that nobody and nothing would be able to stand in his way. He knows that if the people holding him let him use his bionics, he and Bree and Chase would be free.

He wonders offhand if Bree and Chase were also deactivated. But then again, Chase is taking the passive, timid, if-I-don’t-make-them-angry-maybe-they’ll-ignore-me route (that’s his understanding), and he doesn’t know about Bree. Maybe they’re being nicer to her. So he’s probably the only one to have been shut down.

To him, that’s a success. A horribly frustrating success, but a success. Better him than them. He told Chase he’d do everything to get them out of this shit situation, and damn, he meant it. If he has to spend some time as a normal person, he’ll do it.

But he’s still not happy with the situation as a whole. If he’d taken things a little more seriously and been a little more aggressive, he knows he could have fought all three of them free. It would have been easy to escape back at home. A quick blast wave, really, and they could have run off.

Adam shakes his head. He didn’t act fast enough; he failed. And that’s that. He closes his hand and flicks the blood from the tops of his knuckles, watching the drops splash across the floor.

Better his blood staining this facility than Bree or Chase’s. If Agent Graham finally gets to him, and it all gets too much to bear, he has to remember that.

He punches the wall again. Eventually, he’ll swing and his blow will surge through the wall like he’s used to. Like it’s supposed to.

That numbing stuff can’t be permanent, right? Maybe they’ll give him some for his hand. Punching the wall is getting painful.

* * *

 

Chase is starting to get worried. Or maybe he’s just bored and worry is the emotion that’s filling his brain in the absence of interesting intellectual stimulation.

But he knows something’s not right. Adam wouldn’t have gone quiet this long unless something happened to him. Otherwise, he knows Adam would have broken at least three more walls and more than a few guards’ bones by now. He decides to ask the next attendant about Adam. He hopes they won’t withhold information on Adam, and Bree if he asks, just out of spite.

It’ll probably take a day or two for Adam to accept this is a part of life now and move on. Chase has no idea what “moving on” will be for Adam. For him, it’s resignation that this happened and that if they could have escaped, they didn’t. He knows he can’t change it, so he won’t let himself dwell on it. He’s going to attempt to understand what Agent Graham wants from him, engage Graham’s curiosity--he senses it on the man, along with fear and, honestly, an unsettling amount of triumph--and judge for himself what the best move will be going forward. He doesn’t make rash judgments. Adam’s demonstrating that that’s his thing.

He knows that he may still have to fight. But if he does, he wants it to be for the right reasons.

And he wants to be well rested for whatever is to come.

He can’t gain any useful data from pacing by the door of his cell, and he figures that when Graham wants him someone will get him, so he decides to go to sleep. He settles himself across the bed, though sleeping standing up has always been natural for him. If nothing else, today is going to be a learning experience for him, and he’s decided that right now, he’s going to learn what it’s like to sleep like a normal person.

* * *

 

Adam’s right hand might be broken. He probably should have switched to his left hand at some point. Especially once his bionics started coming back in actual bursts and flashes.

His shoes got singed when his lasers sparked out unexpectedly as he was staring at his feet. He still can’t control his plasma grenades very well; he learned they rebound off reinforced concrete when one flew off as he finished a punch. And something very definitely crackled in his hand when his full force came into the swing of his last punch.

He sits on the edge of the bed, hoping he doesn’t crash straight through it, and cradles his injured hand. He examines it as intensely as he knows how, which really just involves a lot of prodding and attempts to move it. Neither part of his examination is pleasant; he runs out of curse words in the first thirty seconds.

_This probably wasn’t the best idea,_ he chides himself. Now he’s getting his powers back, but they won’t be much use if he can’t use his hand. So he has to wait to heal, and hope they don’t keep sticking him with that numbing stuff.

But if he doesn’t keep fighting, he feels like he’s going back on his promise to Chase. Plus, what if Agent Graham takes it as some sort of surrender? He can’t let that happen.

He’ll fight injured when he gets the chance. That should prove his strength and resilience for sure.


	5. Chapter 5

Adam’s still hunched over his hand when Agent Graham returns.

“So now you’ve injured yourself, Subject A. Are you trying to become disposable to me?”

Graham is trying to be incredibly manipulative. Adam recognizes it because it’s something Chase does—wait, used to do, but always for minor things. Like doing his own homework, mostly. And to stop tossing him around. Chase was no fun.

Adam misses Chase. But he can’t go find him right now, with Graham and three assistants ready to stun-gun him to oblivion if he even makes a threatening twitch. So he’s going to try to do the next best thing and think like Chase.

He wants to explain that he’s trying to get away from Graham. That would probably only anger him, so he decides against it. (He’s making decisions for his own good, he really is thinking like Chase!)

“No. I hurt myself on accident,”

“So you’re being even more reckless with your well-being now?” Graham cuts in with an accusatory tone.

Adam’s eyebrows pull in but he refuses to react otherwise and continues his thought. “I injured myself on accident because I was frustrated that you made my bionic powers inaccessible to me,”

He’s proud of himself for using words like “frustrated” and “inaccessible” but his moment of pride washes away quickly at the look on Graham’s face. He knows that something he’d said was the **exact** wrong thing to say.

“Oh, so my numbing agent was able to render your powers ineffective. What a simple solution. Thank you for informing me of this, Subject A. You’re actually rather helpful in this state. Perhaps if we can keep you like this, we won’t have to eliminate you.”

It takes all Adam’s self-control not to fire his lasers directly into Graham’s haughty eyes. His powers are back without noticeable side effects now, but letting Graham know this would be very unwise. Adam’s done his share of unwise things for the day. He’s going to just stop talking to Agent Graham entirely. That way he can’t give Graham any information he could use against Bree and Chase. Plus, he won’t have to deal with Graham’s sense of superiority that makes Chase seem humble.

“Since we may still have a use for you, I’ll see about getting your hand fixed up for you.” Graham nods at Adam as he walks away with his aides. The door clamps shut behind them.

Adam hates that Graham keeps saying things about having a “use” for him. He’s not a stupid tool or machine.

“You know what, no. You can’t do this” he says, mostly to himself. He releases a blast of the energy he hadn’t been aware of accumulating. Immediately the tension in his shoulders eases up, but the rest of him is still rocky with anger and indignation. He stands up, not knowing when he decided to do so, and moves forward as if on a preprogrammed path. It reminds him vaguely of his time under the Triton App, but he marches forward and slams through the titanium door of his own free will.

He pauses a moment, the heated glowing of his eyes somewhat distorting his vision, and is incredibly surprised to find himself alone in the hall. He doesn’t mind, but knows it’s a really bad security procedure.

He turns left and walks with strong, brisk strides as if he’s a missile with a locked target. He feels more confident than he probably logically should in this situation, but he prefers the feeling over frustration and fear. His breathing is smooth and even as he pulls a locked door from its hinges and descends a shadowed staircase, his footsteps quiet yet certain.

He’s stopped short by a reinforced door with a passcode. Chase’s reaction would have been to hack it; Adam grips the entry pad and pulls it from the door. _Hmm, I barely got electrocuted,_ he thinks as the door audibly powers down, several locks sliding out of place. He pushes the heavy door aside and walks into the hallway on the other side.

The hall is brightly lit and very occupied. Computers make tons of noises and the people using the computers manage to make even more. Nobody looks up long enough to do anything about his presence, so Adam continues down the hall, not pausing to look into the rooms branching off to either side, until he passes a bank of monitors showing security footage.

He backtracks and looks frantically from screen to screen. He finally finds something of interest: Chase sprawled across his cot, obviously oblivious to everything. Adam’s never seen Chase sleeping lying down, and for a second believes his little brother was knocked unconscious, but Chase seems comfortable enough that his concern is flicked aside. Five cameras over, he finds Bree pacing in her small cell. She certainly looks stressed, but unhurt. His mind eased considerably, he turns around.

He finds himself face-to-face with Agent Graham. Surprised, he sets off a plasma grenade. The older man raises his eyebrows and starts to say something condescending,  but Adam cuts him off quickly. By cutting off his air.

* * *

 

Apparently, the walls of Chase’s cell are highly magnetic.

He woke up with his face mashed up against the wall and his left arm totally asleep, pinned between the wall and his ribs. Perplexed, it takes him a moment to deactivate his Magnetism App.

He rolls away from the wall and swings himself to a sitting position. As he waits for his arm to return to full functionality, he decides to try a full systems check. His mental database and memory bank have their normal function. His force field refuses to form, but he hopes that’s simply because his left arm is still unresponsive. He doesn’t attempt to try his Override or Commando Apps, and he feels trying to pinpoint his location or hack a nearby computer would only get him in trouble. _So much for a full systems check._

The fact that his Magnetism App started running in his sleep is concerning. Though it’s not a very important or frequently used app, it’s still a glitch. And glitches mean his infrastructure  breaking down. He doesn’t want it to break down. He doesn’t really know who he is without his bionics.

He’s afraid that when his bionics break down, his mind will break down too.


End file.
